Lewis B. Stillwell

Lewis Buckley Stillwell (born March 12, 1863 in Scranton , Pennsylvania , † January 19, 1941 in Princeton , New Jersey ) was an American electrical engineer .

biography

After graduating in electrical engineering from Wesleyan (1882-1884) and Lehigh University in 1885 , he worked for Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh. There he developed an alternating current system together with Charles F. Scott , Otto Shallenberger and Benjamin G. Lamme . In 1890 he became chief electrician at Westinghouse. The power station at Niagara Falls was built under his leadership until 1895 . Additional power plants were built at the Willamette Falls in Oregon and Telluride, Colorado .

In 1897 he became the technical director of the Niagara Falls Power Company . Since the plant produced more electricity than was needed nearby, a line was laid to Buffalo; with Charles F. Scott's converter from two-phase to three-phase alternating current. Stillwell invented the Stillwell regulator (different taps of the transformer) with which the voltage can be adjusted.

After the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company had hired him as a consultant in 1899 , he founded a consultancy firm in New York in 1900. At the same time he became director of the Rapid Transit Subway Company in New York City , where 12,000 workers were involved in the construction of the subway . Over the next three decades, he built subways in six other cities.

1909/1910 he was President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers , in 1921 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Since 1898 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1933 he was awarded the Lamme Medal and in 1935 the AIEE Edison Medal .

Publications

• Relation of Water Power to Transportation ; 1916

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: Lewis B. Stillwell. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 11, 2018 .